About this course

Entry requirements

Registration
Applicants must be registered with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) or any other Social Work regulator in the United Kingdom.
Qualification
Successful applicants will normally have an Honours degree (2:2 or above) and must have a professional qualification in Social Work. They also must have one year of post qualifying experience to be eligible to apply for the course.
Experience
All applicants must be practising social workers in a children and families social work setting. Applicants will normally have a minimum of one year of post-qualifying experience within the children and families setting for direct entry into the course.
Recognition of Prior Certificated Learning (RPCL)
Students seeking accreditation of prior certificated learning (RP[C]L) will be referred to the University of Bedfordshire's regulations for admission with advanced standing. Each case will be assessed on its merit and in line with the University's maximum permissible credit transfer for the level of award sought.

Months of entry

September

Course content

About the course

If you wish to develop your expertise as a Children and Families Social Worker, this course is for you.

Developing advanced systematic understanding, knowledge and analytical skills, you will enhance your competence and management of risk, based on the values of contemporary social workers.

Intermediate qualifications available:

Postgraduate certificate – 60 credits at Masters level

Postgraduate diploma – 120 credits at Masters level

Key features

Study and use the latest ideas and theories, and promote a culture of professional curiosity that embraces current research within children and families social work

Explore the knowledge, analytical skills and mental agility required in the assessment, planning and decision making needed for best outcomes while working collaboratively in ever-changing environments

Develop your expertise in critical reflection, bringing analytical and research-led perspectives to the forefront of your practice when making professional judgements in complex family interventions

Gain your full potential by enhancing your confidence, resilience, adaptability and self-awareness so that you can evaluate and plan for your own future direction and learning needs

Benefit from discovering how best to protect vulnerable children by making professional and well-informed judgements that are based on analysis of complex evidence.

This course will enable child and family social workers to develop a high degree of competence and professional expertise by engaging with current knowledge and developing a high level of skills for intervention.

The course is aimed at registered social workers practicing in the area of Children and Families service provision. Underpinned by the Professional Capabilities Framework (TCSW 2012) and current evidence from research, this course will provide Children and Families practitioners with the advanced systematic understanding, knowledge and skills needed for competent practice and the development of higher level professional capability

Career opportunities

As the course has been mapped against the Professional Capability Framework for Social Work (TCSW 2012b), on completion you will have evidence that you have met the capabilities at advanced level.

Many career opportunities will be available to you in social work as a consequence, with some employers sponsoring aspiring practitioners onto this course.

Specifically your employability skills will be enhanced by:

being given opportunities to practise skills through varied activities and by engaging in a simulated interview that will be recorded and analysed, including receiving thorough feedback on recorded practice

creating a personal development strategy outlining your strengths, areas for improvements, opportunities for development and how any barriers to these can be overcome, thus mapping out ways for your aspirations to be achieved

developing employability skills such as professional expertise, high level oral and written communication skills, analytical problem solving and decision making abilities

learning from other social work practitioners both informally and formally about what works and what does not work in social work with children and families and sharing this knowledge to improve social work practice.

Areas of study include

Complex Assessments, Decision Making, Analysis and Risk

Motivational Interviewing for Social Work

Current Issues in Fostering and Adoption

Supervising for Quality and Performance in Social Work

Practice Educator Training: Stage 1

Practice Educator Training: Stage 2

Applying Knowledge to Work Based Learning

Applied Research Skills in Social Work

Dissertation for Social Workers: Children and Families

Fees and funding

For details on the financial support on offer at the University of Bedfordshire please visit our website: www.beds.ac.uk/pgfunding.